Further, management of link outages and rerouting of traffic based on levels of business priority is not something that can be managed efficiently using traditional networking toolkits.Įnter Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). These needs call for solutions that are uncomplicated, seamless, scalable and cost effective. With the ‘new normal’, further pressure is coming from the need to securely connect staff who are working from home or any other conceivable location in order to access corporate resources. These may be necessary to support, among other things, Internet access, access to Disaster Recovery (DR) sites and, increasingly, access to public cloud hosted applications. Some have a combination of Internet, MPLS, local loops, etc. The current architectures that organisations have to deal with may have multiple branches with different devices, connected by differently scaled connections from multiple vendors with varying availability and quality of service. A model that is based on the right of use rather than pilling of hardware is more preferable as it reduces financial pressures on businesses.Īlthough technology to ease branch orchestration is now available, a significant number of engineers still grapple with managing network devices in a multi-branch environment it should not be the case! The modern CFO prefers a CAPEX light model in the running of business. Proprietary devices have to be refreshed when they reach end-of-life or end-of-support, a process that involves CAPEX outflows and is, understandably, frowned upon by most CFOs. Unfortunately, some of these challenges are still being experienced today by most engineers.Īnother challenge faced in managing network devices has been the process of dealing with the short life cycles of device models and firmware.
Subsequently, depending on how security was initially set up, some changes could be performed remotely, but often, the engineer was kept busy trotting from branch to branch to change configurations or perform firmware upgrades. If an organisation had many branches with routers, switches and firewalls, it was inevitable for the network engineer to physically visit each of the branches to ensure that correct configurations were made. Management of multiple devices was a nightmare. I must say that this faced a bit of resistance from the hardcore ‘command-liners’ as it was seen as cheating! Later, Java-driven configuration tools with a graphics user interface became available to simplify the process and provide some visualisation of what was happening on these boxes. Imagine the agony of managing encryption keys from a command line!
#NETWORK ENGINEER TOOLKIT MANUAL#
Setting up Access lists on a PIX Firewall was something only few could confidently do without having a CISCO configuration manual open on the side. One needed to know command line syntax to set up and manage devices such as routers and firewalls. In my early years as a Network Engineer, management of devices was serious business.